What, you don't want to live in Paradise? Okaaaay...

I have been catching up on some gardening books. One was the Complete Idiot's Guide to Self Sufficiency. An pragmatic American tome for the wannabe goat farmers, beekeepers and cheese makers amongst us who see earth as a 'spaceship' and the other was a philosophical English thesis called 'Therapeutic Gardening' with lots of quotes by esteemed literary types extolling the sybaritic virtues of gardening. It's interesting how both extremes, complete idiots and literati alike, have taken to gardening.

Can I be said to be somewhere in the middle? Middle child that I am? I want to make peace with the earthy types with soil underneath their fingernails (mine are often a disaster) and the brainy types with their heads in the clouds reciting Wordsworth (yes, the clouds are lonely, but they also bring much needed rain for our fair isles).

One thing I can't deal with though, is people who don't like gardening at all. And who want to stop other people from doing it. I don't get that. When has a garden ever threatened their wellbeing, or harmed them in some way, or somehow interfered with their lives? Why do those people who say no to gardening but then don't do anything else worthwhile want to impose their rules on people who like gardening? I don't see them offering the fruits of their labours (no fruits, because, only gardening can give you fruit) and sharing with others, or brightening up peoples lives with flowers, or giving them fresh air.

I can deal with the control freak type, who want every weed banished and only want you to grow well behaved plants in rows. They can go live in america on Kansas that's where those types ought to be sent. I can deal with the lazy types, who just want to be. They can just go to the bush and forage.
I can deal with beginners, who just need to be taught, and know-it-alls, who just need to go find an ivory tower to write their expert book on how to garden.

But the people who say,  we don't want a garden here because its more important to have the land used as a car park. Or, any trees will be blocking our view of the sea. I think God has a special place reserved for them that is very hot, has no trees, no air,  no water,  no light, and it starts with H and ends in L.

Vocation, vocation, vocation

My lemon tree is now planted...in the front yard. Mum saw I was going to put it near the terrace of the house on the north side where it gets the most sun, but was up and arms about it growing to block the path. So now it is planted in Mary and Socks bed where the pink cabbage tree died.
I have fed it some cow pat pit liquid manure, organic rock dust fertiliser and lime. I was quite amazed at how shallow citrus roots are. Just this week came across a book by Eion Scarrow all about citrus trees on the library withdrawn trolley. The thing is it had cross section diagrams such as dig a drain and put scoria in for heavy clay soil..but who really does that? Most gardeners don't they just plant each tree as they come it's never a plant by numbers thing where you get every plant and then just fill in the plot like colouring in a book. The outlines aren't even there to begin with and you don't even know what's underneath unless you try some very expensive excavation.

What Esther Dean of the 'no dig' school of gardening recommends is using a pendulum. If it goes clockwise, its good, if its anti clockwise, it's bad. Or something like that. Might be different according to the hemisphere you live in. Perhaps the dowsers have it right after all. When the pendulum makes a figure eight movement, plant it. And when mixing your biodynamic fertiliser, swirl clockwise then anti clockwise to activate the microbes. To me, it's a dizzy style of gardening, but, if you stand still long enough like a plant would because it likes to fix itself in one spot (it's not got legs like us) you'll experience the stars and clouds and sun race by overhead, and if you're planted in the wrong spot where you can't access all that you need, you can't do a thing about it can you?

I sometimes felt like that when I was stuck in some jobs and I wasn't allowed to move. I would be like, can I try something else. The planters, or the HR or whoever it was could see I wasn't thriving where I was but they would just tell me to work harder. Sorry but no it doesn't work that way. You can't tell a plant just to grow taller or bigger. They need the right location, and no matter what you do they won't be happy until they are placed just so.

Terri came over yesterday for a garden visit and also checked out my new library fridge, just a few doors down. My excess garden books go in there so she's picked up a book on water plants for inspiration for her pond in a dinghy. Terri's keen to chat about online gardening so I'm going to be doing some research checking out the best of the best garden groups online. Terri gave me some tips about using panty hose for tree ties (or in my case, arch supports) and she made appreciative comments about my garden. Mum was like 'your garden is rubbish, why would she want to come and see it?' so I just said well Terri doesn't think so. Mum has to get over her God complex and think that she's always right about everything and nobody can think differently from the way she does. But then she was the one who planted the apricot tree really close to the house, which never fruits. So what does she know?

Anyway I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that when life gives you lemons, you need to make lemonade. Life isn't giving us apricots, so I won't be making apricot jam any time soon.

Fun with Feijoas and other fruit trees

I have two feijoa trees in my garden. One is doing really well and given us fruit all season, but the other one, it's companion, didn't have hardly any fruit at all. Or only very tiny, yellowing fruit, you could count it on one hand. Last year I pruned many of the branches back as it was growing too tall and it sprouted a lot of new growth from the cuts, which made it more bushy. I have now cleared all this growth that was growing into the tree and let more light and air in.

The feijoa prunings I've left under the buxus hedge until I decide what to do with them all, I'm sure they must have broken down from last year that I remember putting them in other beds. The feijoas are pretty healthy and no sign of myrtle rust or mites that I've heard are beginning to plague feijoas around the country, so am thankful my garden still has these fruit trees as standbys.

Another backyard fruit tree that I may replant soon is my lemon tree. At the moment it's in a pot, but I'm hoping to get it in the ground at some stage, on a mound, so it can put it's roots in further. I have moved it to the north side of the house, and it seems to like it with more sun.

Our tangelo tree is just coming into fruit, and it likes its companions under the shade of the canopy - bromeliads, orchids, fuchsia, seem to have multiplied at its base in pots.

Other than that not much gardening been doing except clearing out some kikuyu round St Giles, and at home, feeding the soil with CPP - cow pat pit biodynamic fertiliser. Bulbs are coming up, I see the tips of dutch iris reappearing, and freesias. I have put in some peas but its very random whether these seeds sprout and give me peas, since I don't coddle them, perhaps Martha eats the shoots?

I'm refilling my two compost bins which hopefully will give me another batch of compost in spring.
Cleopatra Magnolia has now lost her leaves and we are just now coming into the autumn season.The maples are dropping and so are the apricots. My eggplants are still ripening...will they ever be harvested? I managed to get some chilis this year.

I need to wait now for spring which is hard for a gardener to do, otherwise I would be really busy planting up a storm of fruit trees at St Giles, but it seems, alas, they don't want any. I heard back months later (six months, to be exact) from one of their boards that yes, you can do some gardening. Oh and can you  clear weeds in 2 weeks because the Ministry of Education is now coming to inspect the property round the daycare. I just said no, I'm way too busy with other things now...like sorting books!

Six months to make a decision to weed the garden.

?!

Garden neglect, a lament

Have you ever been neglected as a child?

Middle child syndrome is such when the first born gets all the attention, and the second born gets half that attention the first born gets, but even worse when the third born arrives, the first is grown up enough to be independent, but the second born not quite, while the third born, now commands the lion share. Even worse is when the third born are twins.

The poor second born will only get attention when it's urgent.

Crying out for food and water? Oh no, the second born is just being a nuisance now.

Well its just like that with gardens. Often the second born will be the one that has to prepare to be sacrificed, because nobody can really bear to part with the first born.

I'm only musing this because every garden mother may feel this when she has too many children and not enough hands. Do mothers ever sacrifice their children, well yes that still happens in todays day and age they just call it abortion.

Now imagine how the garden feels when you neglect it. It's been crying out but the powers that be, or the providers - the dads, have failed to provide. Child,  what child? I didn't even know we had one. Garden, what garden? Oh you mean the area around the house thats full of weeds. Just spray the lot. Kill everything. Then you won't have the problem of looking after it.

Some people decide they want to hire a garden nanny. If they are rich and have the funds. But what a job for the garden nanny! After months, years of neglect, the garden is wild and undisciplined and hard work. And it won't be 'fixed' in just two weeks.

I was once a garden nanny. I looked after gardens where the owners had decided that they just didn't have the time, they were too busy sipping mai tais on the beach. They dropped in only occasionally to look at their profit margin.

The problem with being a nanny is that you may fall in love with your charges. The charges may look to YOU as their real mother. But reality is there will come a time when you have to leave. The children may be grown up but they never forget the nurture you provided.

I don't really go back to see whats become of the gardens I once looked after. I think it would break my heart to know that these garden owners couldn't even look after their own gardens, never touch them or care for them again but needed to hire someone else to do it. That's always the problem isn't it. I don't mind helping out, but you kind of wonder what legitimate reason these garden owners have for not looking after their own gardens, the ones they themselves planted? What could possibly be more important than having a garden so you can have food and fresh air around you?

Dad took a photo of my sunflower..it was the only sunflower that survived I grew from seed. It's not very tall but...it actually grew in my clay soil so hooray.

We're just dropping in your garden Chris...

Our pruning man Ben put a Facebook post about visiting Chris Ballantynes' garden and soon all the Tree Croppers were saying ooh can I visit too? Next thing you know the hordes descend upon his garden. Chris' landscaping company is Second Nature which I did some work for in the past (very basic garden care, ok, hired hand). Gardening is his passion, his hobby, his livelihood and his obsession. And so we met the garden behind the man.

Chris has got a very subtropical palms and bird of paradise lushness going on in his front yard, and out the back, the traditional vege patch, complete with bee hives and chickens as well as a sideline of exotic plants in pots all for sale. The signature plant star jasmine is there of course. All Second Nature gardens have them...the garden backs on to the Henderson creek and has a lovely view. The soil is NOT the greatest - Te Atatu Peninsula-ites have to contend with rock hard clay. 20 years of feeding and composting and a clay breaking substance has resulted in friable soil where plants can actually grow.

He gave us some tips on rainwater harvesting, sharing two big tanks with his neighbour. He feeds plants with comfrey tea, and keeps the kikuyu at bay with them.

So much to take in, but an interesting snippet he shared was in the commercial gardening world, or shall we say industry, nurseries have mechanised everything. All the plants grown for sale are mass produced on production lines like a huge factory glass house. The upshot is they can grow large numbers these plants, all controlled hydroponically but the downside is they only last a couple of weeks when planted in your garden and then they die. They are planted in peat, from Lithuania. He says they are glorified cuttings.

He also showed us these special plastic pots called hydropots with holes all around that mean you can air prune the roots and the plants don't get pot bound if you surround them with mulch. Black plastic pots though, are the bane and dirty secret of the nursery industry as they are non-recyclable and they make hundreds of thousands each year that just end up in landfill, many can't even be reused because its cheaper to make new ones then wash and sterilise them.

Chris mentioned a planting project Second Nature are involved in, which is actually at mum's work Parrs Products. They have transformed outside the factory into a bee pollinating garden, that used to be a wasteland of weeds - privet and morning glory and pallets. I'm definitely going to visit and check it out next time I will pick mum up from work. We have got pallets for Woodside Garden from Parrs and so good to see commercial business looking after their premises and creating gardens for not just to look good but to provide habitat for bees.

Another project Chris has his hand in is the Rivercare project looking after Henderson Creek and its environs, after several disgusting sewerage overflows and kayakers trawling rubbish as they went out kayaking. Now there is going to be a coordinated approach to monitoring the health of our creeks, clean ups, and lobbying of our Watercare  to get our overloaded stormwater system up to scratch.

Thank you Chris for showing us your garden. Some of us took photos, others took cuttings, I've taken  a lot of inspiration from another good keen gardener.

Living with non-gardeners

I really don't know how gardeners survive living with non-gardeners, or even in marriages, wouldn't it be like sleeping with the enemy? Say you marry a non-gardening husband or wife, and you do all your gardening while your non-gardening spouse doesn't lift a finger to help, but then ruins all your hard work by 'helping' prune, or pull out 'weeds' that are actually the plants you've planted and mows over all the shrubs.

How frustrating would that be. Say you grow all your own veges and fruits buy your spouse refuses to eat them and decides they'd rather live off fast food instead. They spray Round up and concrete over the soil just so they don't have to look after anything outside. They chop down all the trees you've taken years to grow, and chuck them in the creek. They put plastic in the compost bin. Then say it's a waste of time buying plants because they are all going to die. They sell off all the topsoil from a new build and just expect you to plant in rock hard clay.  They think gardening is just your 'hobby' like collecting china cups or making model trains. A harmless diversion that keeps you busy and out of their way.

Non-gardeners then wonder why gardeners get mad at them.

I propose all non-gardeners move to the urban jungle 20 storey apartment blocks  where there are no plants at all except plastic ones and artificial grass. They will need to not wear clothes made from cotton or any natural fibres that come from plants. And they can't eat any green food, or have tea or coffee because that's made from plants. They will need to subsist on a diet of synthetic pills and coca cola.
Their apartment blocks cannot have any furnishings made of wood as that's from trees. They can't read any books only e-books because books are made of paper. They can't even use toilet paper they must use wet wipes. If they are to give flowers, they must be artificial.

I would be interested to see how long these non-gardening people last in a world where there are no gardens. If they destroyed and banished all gardens.... Their parks would be a big rectangle of astroturf and for shade they would need to erect an awning or sail because they obviously don't know how to look after any trees. They couldn't have KFC because it would not taste the same without the 11 herbs and spices ...which come from plants. They would need to use a lot of paint if they want any colour in their world since there won't be any green leaves and flowers, or dyes made from plants.  I suspect it will be quite grey.

After say 1000 years of this no-plant life I'm thinking they might regret chopping down that last tree and poisoning the stumps. Perhaps these non-gardeners will go and visit the trees in that Kauri tree museum and wonder at how anything could actually grow 20 storeys high without being made by man. They might learn to appreciate real flowers instead of seeing replicas and images on their computer screens. And they might wonder what that fresh clean smell is after years of living indoors with Glade spritzing the air. They might then learn what a glade actually is. And that Christmas trees can be real.

But I wonder if they just don't want to be redeemed, at the end of their life instead of being buried in a coffin in the ground, they may prefer to be burned up into ashes and sprinkled in the sea to be eaten by sharks. I'm just following things to their logical conclusion.

I'm surprised that some people would think gardeners are the crazy ones. Its only because non-gardeners drive us gardeners crazy when we have to live with them!

Going indoors

My new job is indoors but I've bought some plants in with me. I picked four spider plants for hanging baskets in the library, thanks to Rose the Ranui Primary School gardener and Mr O the caretaker who hung them up for me.

Rose loves her plants and has grown edibles everywhere at school, fruit trees, herbs, flowers, veges. They are in pots and beds and all around the school. Mr O looks after the sports fields and keeps the weeds at bay. It is lovely to see plants well taken care of and for picking not just for show.

I spoke with Brigita who is the Fabulous Garden Mama for Garden Planet which airs this Wednesday. I found out all sorts of things to do with indoor plants - the trick is, to select the ones that are low maintenance! That don't need heaps of water - and one could over water them. Which I am sure I must have done in my old job where I spent 3 days each week watering over 200 indoor plants. My boss would say water them till the water comes out the bottom. Drown them! So I did the peace lilies and then the next time he would growl at me for leaving them sitting in water.

I hope they are still alive. So if anyone who's reading this has that job (I didn't stick around to nominate a successor) my tip is don't listen to your boss. Listen to your plants. Chuck out the mealy bug ridden synogoniums while he isn't there and secretly replace them with tough spider plants. Honestly the oldies won't really mind because they'd rather have healthy plants than bug ridden ones. I sure wasn't going to spray them indoors while they were there.

Anyway Brigita has fabulous plants for sale on trademe . Tough ones that are so trendy right now such as monstera, birds nest fern, ficus elastica (rubber plant), purple wandering jew, peperomia, parlour palms, and boston ferns. For each plant she's got detailed instructions on how to care for them, how often to water and when to feed with worm juice. They also come in really cool woven baskets. I'm thinking of buying a few parlour palms for St Giles, surely they wont object since they seem to thrive on neglect. New comers also include begonias and streptocarpus.

Guess what I came third in the Begonia in a pot competition! Held by Karyn's mother. Karyn came second. I am sure that was a fluke because my pot was really a plastic disgrace (I had run out of nice pots)  and I didn't get many flowers.   I had it in a bicycle and it was a red flower. Our prize was a lunch with Karyn's mum up in Matakana. Our next contest is to grow freesias. I have chucked them in the ground and hoped for the best.

Next week I'm going to chat with Bev from the Floral Circle all about flowers. So Brigita if you tune in you'll find out all about how to best prune your hydrangeas. After all she's the expert. Bev admonished me for planting spanish shawl too early. Bev used to manage her own nursery so I am sure she knows pretty much everything there is to know about growing flowers.